The Palace of Darkened Windows eBook

Arlee rode like a fairy princess of mystery, the silver
shawl which they had bought at a village to shield
her from the sun, drooping in heavy folds from her
head, its metal threads glimmering in the moon rays....
Her eyes were solemn with the beauty and the wonder,
of the night, and the strange solitude and isolation;
her look was ethereal to Billy and mystically lovely.

But Girgeh seemed to retreat farther and farther into
the unknown south, and at last it was no fairy princess
but only a very tired girl who slid stiffly down from
the saddle, and pillowed a heavy head on Billy’s
coat. And it was a very tired young man who lay
beside her, listening to the deep breathing of the
beasts and the faint breath that rose rhythmically
beside him. Yet for a time he did not sleep.
His heart was full of the awe and mystery of the moonlit
world about him—­and the awe and mystery
of that little bit of the living world curled there
so intimately in the dark....

With a reverent hand he drew the wraps he had purchased
closer over her. The night was growing cold.
Far off the jackals howled.... With his gun at
hand he slept at last, and slept sound, though sand
is the hardest mattress in the world and a camel’s
back not the softest pillow....

CHAPTER XIX

THE PURSUIT

“But I shall die,” said Arlee. “I
shall simply die if I have to go another step upon
that creature.”

She said it cheerfully, but firmly, a sleepy, sunburned
little nomad, sitting cross-legged in the sands, slowly
plaiting her honey-colored hair. “Even
this,” she announced, indicating the slight
gesture of braiding, “is agony.”

“It’s the morning after,” said Billy,
testing his shoulder with wry grimaces. “It’s
yesterday’s speed—­and then this infernally
cold night. No wonder we’re lame.
Why, I have one universal crick wherever I used to
have muscles. But let me call your attention to
the fact that we are in the wilds of Egypt and that
tangerines are hardly a lasting breakfast. Something
has to be done.”

“Not upon camels,” said Arlee fixedly.

“They say it doesn’t hurt after an hour
or so more.”

“I shouldn’t live to find out.”

“A walk,” he suggested, “a slow,
swaying, gently undulating walk——?”

“A long, lingering, agonizing death,”
the young lady translated. She tossed the curly
end of her braid over her shoulder and rose, with
sounds of lamentation. “I ought to have
known better than to sit down again when I was once
up,” she confided sadly.

“Just what,” inquired her companion, “is
your idea for the day? How do you expect to reach
Girgeh? It can’t be very far away now——­”

“Then we’ll walk—­we’ll
walk,” she emphasized, “and tow those
ships of the desert after us. That will be bad
enough, but better—­what’s that?”

Like a top, for all his stiffness, Billy spun about
to stare where her finger pointed. Over the crest
of a hillock, far to the north—­yes, something
was hurrying their way.